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Growl is still open source, you can find it over at https://code.google.com/p/growl/ and build the source code using the instructions at http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-install.php. The source tracks the official releases from the developers and is still BSD licensed.

If you don't want to build from source, they do offer a pre-built binary for free, or maybe you can convince a developer friend to build it for you.

Either way, there is no bait-and-switch. The source has always been free. They just decided recently to start charging for the process of building and verifying binaries.

Yay! I've been waiting for a decent notification framework to become part of MacOS ever since Growl screwed up mightily after moving to the App Store. Also now I don't have to tweak Mail every single time a new version comes out just to have decent e-mail notification. Was about time...

Growl source

Disclaimer: I don't have hg installed here at work so I can't verify that it really is version 1.3.

Its odd how difficult it is to find . There used to be links to source on the download page, but now there are not. All of this controversy could have been avoided if the Mercurial repository had been easier to find. The actual hg repository appears to be at https://code.google.com/p/growl/ . I do have hg installed, and it appears that 1.3 is in that repository. I'm not sure how long it's been there, but if it's been there all along, the developers could have simply pointed to it to allay any fears about Growl going proprietary.

Growl source

Disclaimer: I don't have hg installed here at work so I can't verify that it really is version 1.3.

And now the source is there:
http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-install.php

Their decision to open source it in the first place, presumably. Open sources are a bunch of ungrateful bastards that don't one free lunch to extend to a lifetime of free lunches.

( Heck, the open source pariahs even check their facts before whining about people that used to give them free lunches. Growl isn't going closed source any more than Android Ice Cream Sandwich is. In both cases, impatient open source freeloaders can't wait, and create malicious rumours about those providing the free lunches.

  http://growl.info/documentation/faq-new.php#1.3source )

1.- Why AppStore only? I won't buy anything from Apple. I don't want them scanning my hard disks for apps and sending reports back. Also, I have computers without internet access that cannot use AppStore. Also, I want to give my money to the one I'm buying from.

2.- Where is the history of changes for 1.3 ? Why would I need to change and buy an App? I can only see changes up to 1.2.2...
http://growl.info/documentation/version_history.php

1) A few reasons:

1a) Prior to this, multiple applications shipped Growl with their applications, but did not inform the users that they were installing Growl. Applications like HP drivers, Adobe CS5, and Dropbox would either install, or reinstall without informing the user. We needed a trusted party to review Growl, and Apple is it.

1b) When we see hundreds of people a month complaining about the updating system, and the new updating system with Sparkle didn't seem that appealing, it really just didn't seem like a great idea to continue on. Setting up Sparkle infrastructure on our end would have just exacerbated things.

1c) With one of our releases, we exceeded the entire allocation of Google Code's bandwidth within a few hours. Our other host has contacted me in the past to ask if we were seeing a DDOS, just for a release. Meanwhile Apple has this nice infrastructure for just what we wanted, to provide easy downloading and updating.

1d) We do not want to be responsible for credit card transactions. PCI is serious business, and we're not set up for any of that. Nor did we want to be.

2) We just haven't had time to type it all out yet. It's on my todo list. You can look at the app store description, I put some of it in there.

Chris

1.- Why AppStore only? I won't buy anything from Apple. I don't want them scanning my hard disks for apps and sending reports back. Also, I have computers without internet access that cannot use AppStore. Also, I want to give my money to the one I'm buying from.

2.- Where is the history of changes for 1.3 ? Why would I need to change and buy an App? I can only see changes up to 1.2.2...
http://growl.info/documentation/version_history.php

Growl has surprised its users by going closed-source and only available for purchase on the Mac App Store

If you are going to make a statement like this in a headline, shouldn't at least one link point to something that confirms this? I saw nothing that claimed Growl was going closed source.

Regardless of future plans, there is currently no download link for full source on the Grow Downloads page.

Isn't there some form of restriction here in the license, are they allowed to make a closed source derivative work, seeing as they're the original authors? What open source license (if any) was Growl formerly using?

I know some licenses require all derivative works to be open source, but I'm definitely not expert on open source licensing.

Strangely, though the previous Growl Source page had a link to a tarball, the current download page only has non-link text "Growl source code." under "Developer Downloads." The Growl Developer Documentation page says:

Growl is distributed under the conditions of the BSD license. The Extras are BSD licensed as well. Example applications are in the public domain.

The Growl license does seem to be a permissive BSD-style license. This means that nobody using the source has any obligation to provide source to anyone and can use it for any reason as long as they include that license with binaries. This is why OSX contains significant amounts of BSD code and Windows a smaller amount but neither Apple nor Microsoft is obligated to release the source for any of their changes.

Licenses that require source to be made available to those who get binaries are called Copyleft licenses. This is why Google must release the source for changes they make to Linux as part of Android, but they are not required to release changes to other parts of Android which are under permissive licenses.

Both permissive and Copyleft licenses can be used for software that is both Free and Open Source. Since Growl seems to have been under a permissive license all along, there's nothing stopping those who control the web site from making it proprietary and never releasing source again. OTOH, there's nothing preventing anyone else from forking the last released source just as Perry Metzger has done. A fork would probably be required to use a different name. Since those who control the Grow website seem to have removed all download links to source (even older versions) and banned Metzger from the mailing list, it may indicate they plan to keep future versions proprietary, though that's not entirely clear at this point.

Isn't there some form of restriction here in the license, are they allowed to make a closed source derivative work, seeing as they're the original authors? What open source license (if any) was Growl formerly using?

I know some licenses require all derivative works to be open source, but I'm definitely not expert on open source licensing.

Strangely, though the previous Growl Source page had a link to a tarball, the current download page only has non-link text "Growl source code." under "Developer Downloads." The Growl Developer Documentation page says:

Growl is distributed under the conditions of the BSD license. The Extras are BSD licensed as well. Example applications are in the public domain.

The Growl license does seem to be a permissive BSD-style license. This means that nobody using the source has any obligation to provide source to anyone and can use it for any reason as long as they include that license with binaries. This is why OSX contains significant amounts of BSD code and Windows a smaller amount but neither Apple nor Microsoft is obligated to release the source for any of their changes.

Licenses that require source to be made available to those who get binaries are called Copyleft licenses. This is why Google must release the source for changes they make to Linux as part of Android, but they are not required to release changes to other parts of Android which are under permissive licenses.

Both permissive and Copyleft licenses can be used for software that is both Free and Open Source. Since Growl seems to have been under a permissive license all along, there's nothing stopping those who control the web site from making it proprietary and never releasing source again. OTOH, there's nothing preventing anyone else from forking the last released source just as Perry Metzger has done. A fork would probably be required to use a different name. Since those who control the Grow website seem to have removed all download links to source (even older versions) and banned Metzger from the mailing list, it may indicate they plan to keep future versions proprietary, though that's not entirely clear at this point.

Isn't there some form of restriction here in the license, are they allowed to make a closed source derivative work, seeing as they're the original authors? What open source license (if any) was Growl formerly using?

I know some licenses require all derivative works to be open source, but I'm definitely not expert on open source licensing.

Strangely, though the previous Growl Source page had a link to a tarball, the current download page only has non-link text "Growl source code." under "Developer Downloads." The Growl Developer Documentation page says:

Growl is distributed under the conditions of the BSD license. The Extras are BSD licensed as well. Example applications are in the public domain.

The Growl license does seem to be a permissive BSD-style license. This means that nobody using the source has any obligation to provide source to anyone and can use it for any reason as long as they include that license with binaries. This is why OSX contains significant amounts of BSD code and Windows a smaller amount but neither Apple nor Microsoft is obligated to release the source for any of their changes.

Licenses that require source to be made available to those who get binaries are called Copyleft licenses. This is why Google must release the source for changes they make to Linux as part of Android, but they are not required to release changes to other parts of Android which are under permissive licenses.

Both permissive and Copyleft licenses can be used for software that is both Free and Open Source. Since Growl seems to have been under a permissive license all along, there's nothing stopping those who control the web site from making it proprietary and never releasing source again. OTOH, there's nothing preventing anyone else from forking the last released source just as Perry Metzger has done. A fork would probably be required to use a different name. Since those who control the Grow website seem to have removed all download links to source (even older versions) and banned Metzger from the mailing list, it may indicate they plan to keep future versions proprietary, though that's not entirely clear at this point.

Oh good lord, does anyone actually check stories anymore before posting? This is twice is one day!

Read the New FAQ on the site. Here's a link. Look at the last question. They are not going closed source, they just haven't packaged it up yet and released it. They will.

We will post source code. However, our bigger concern right now is fixing issues and providing support to folks on our discussions group, and on our support email address, and on Twitter. As soon as the flood of inbound requests slows down, we fully intend to push the 1.3 source over the wall.

On the other hand, I sure hope that won't be when they release 1.4 to the store.

All I want to know is whether this malware is worthy of the Apple platform or not: Does it use Grand Central Dispatch to efficiently allocate the load of multiple form-stealing processes between all my system's cores? Are the misleading dialog boxes that frighten me further into folly fully compliant with Apple's HID guidelines?

Well, that "MAC defender" scamware uses Growl for its fake virus notifications and with this uses the theme you selected for notification bubbles and such. Depending on your own style it's surely stylish. And you can of course even customize the theme it uses! Try that with Windows.

So Linux users can finally get what Mac users have had for four years?

Revolutionary! :-)

It also looks almost exactly like Growl for OS X.

not even http://growl.info/ ?

hang your head in shame.

Don't forget http://www.growl.info/ - just need to know a tiny bit of scripting and it's amazingly useful

My addition: Growl - Notification manager. Free. Supported by enough Mac apps to make you wish they all supported it.

Install Growl and run HardwareGrowler (included with the download). It'll give you an unobtrusive, customizable notification when you connect or disconnect a piece of hardware.

System-wide application level event notification framework.. Growl Homepage Just a tip!

Ever since discovering Inbox Zero, I am a happier man.

For me, this means:

• Only check email every 30 minutes or 1 hour, on a schedule. No notifiers, no gorgeous translucent summaries, no stinkin' badges. I don't jump when email says to jump; I deal with it when I'm ready to.
• When I'm reading through new mail, every message has one of four fates:
  1. Deleted, if it's useless
  2. Archived, where I can find it if I need to later
  3. Replied to or handled, if I can do so in 2 minutes or less
  4. Transformed into a todo -- either to do later in the day, or on a specific date -- and archived

That way I don't have to wonder, "Say, I think there was some email I was meaning to deal with, where was it, somewhere in here, was it last week? And it's such a joy to have a perfectly empty It really is a great methodology / philosophy, and I heartily recommend it.

Of course, I'd have more cred as a gettting-things-done wizard if I weren't reading Slashdot at the moment...

For instance,Adium is, in my opinion, a far superior multi-protocol chat client to Trillian.

I use Quicksilver almost constantly at home. I've got nothing like that at work.

There still isn't a good Exposé solution for Windows. I've tried the knock-offs and they're all pretty pathetic attempts.

There's nothing like Growl that I know of. Each application has to implement its own alert system. This would be great for letting me know when a source control sync or a compile is finished.

The one great app that I've found for Windows is Slickedit, which has pretty decent Emacs emulation, but does the whole intellisense thing better than I've been able to get Emacs to do (yes, I've tried Semantic and ECB).

Since the only game I play these days is WoW, my Mac is fantastic on its own. Bootcamp holds no pull for me. If I want more games, I'll buy a console. For the work that I do, there's nothing that I can do on a Windows PC that my Mac can't do better. (I'm not saying that this is true for everyone, just me.)

So if someone can point me in the direction of apps that are as good as the ones that I mentioned for Windows, I'd actually appreciate that. I'm sick of trying to hit Command-Space and not getting Quicksilver.

The popups and focus stealing are a symptom of a larger problem: application authors assume you bought a computer just to run their application.

That's not the real problem, though. App writers shouldn't be responsible for managing window focus, period. Window managers should take some fucking responsibility for what's going on and give users the ability to choose how focus works system-wide, as well as allowing per-application customization.

Growl does something similar (but just for notifications) on the Mac, to give an idea of how things ought to work.

...and gCount too.

Both GmailStatus and GCount use the in-development Mac OS X Growl framework for cute little pop-up notifiers.

If you (understandably) don't want to compile Growl, here's a compiled version.

~jeff